Too Long...

So, since it was the end of FEBRUARY since I last posted, there is a lot to get caught up on. I will point out some highlights...

March Highlights:

Quarter of a century birthday fun - on the 23rd, I turned 25... enjoyed my time with friends

Faculty Follies - a faculty talent show that was put on as a fundraiser. Friends of mine and I did a "Thriller Remix" dance... video and photos to follow.

April Highlights:

SPRING BREAK!! - I had a wonderful visit with Brooke - we travelled to Istanbul and explored around Sofia. Too much time on the overnight train, but we saw some great sights, and had a wonderful time :) It is always wonderful to have friends/family from home visit. It seems to enable me to connect this life to my life I lived in the U.S. thus validating my experiences and the life I have lived here these past two years... weird, I know, but it is a common feeling.

Lil Jon Concert - Lil Jon came to Sofia. So weird. So crazy. And so fun... I am not sure I have had so much fun watching/listening to the worst musical talent (or lack thereof) in my life...

May Highlights (so far):

Long Weekend #1 in Koprivshtitsa - A Bulgarian/American/Ukrainian wedding. Beautiful weather, great fun, and a quintessential experience for my two years in Bulgaria. I now feel that my stay here is complete in my cultural experiences. Now, there are so many more things I would love to do and see here in this country, but there is just no way I will be able to fit it all in before I leave :) That is why I will have to return for a visit in the future. To follow the wedding, my roommates, our friend Jaime and I drove another two hours south to a place outside Plovdiv, called Bachkovo. Here there is an amazing mountain monastery and hiking in a nature reserve. It was absolutely lovely and we had a wonderful time. It was good to have a hike through the Rodope Mountains, getting some fresh air after such a "celebratory" weekend.

Rest of the month - The seniors are ALREADY finished with school (all seniors in Bulgaria are done with school by now). Graduation is in a couple of weekends, followed by another long weekend, where we have planned a return trip to Thassos, Greece. It should be a lovely way to celebrate the spring, the coming of summer, and to enjoy some beach exposure in the meantime before we finish up the school year.

I cannot believe that I am almost done here in Bulgaria. I am still looking for a job in the U.S. but I have some good leads, so keep your fingers crossed! Being here in the Bulg has been an amazing experience, and one that has led me to meet some wonderful people and friends who I hope to stay in touch with and see in the future. Bulgaria is such a beautiful and amazing country with such a unique culture that I have loved to be somewhat a part of and getting to know. Time certainly does fly...

Photos to follow!

Famous in Bulgaria!!

One of my dear friends and colleagues here at the school has been in Sofia for the past year and a half, and this year began working at my school. She has kept a blog of her adventures In & Around Bulgaria. Her blog has attracted many loyal followers, expats and Bulgarians alike. Recently she was contacted by a local TV station who wanted to make a short series about her life here in Bulgaria to show on their morning tv broadcast. It has been hysterical to watch her and our life on Bulgarian television :)

Check out the youtube links as well as her blog here:

Karolinka in Bulgaria

Here is the series that has been appearing on NOVA television. One of her blog followers recorded these mini episodes for her. Unfortunately I cannot find the first episode. Enjoy!

(I love you C!)

Riding on the bus...

Balkan Dance Practice!!

This morning I missed the 5th episode on television, but I will upload it as soon as I can find it! :)

Well done C.!

A Happy New Year - Winter in Sofia

Here in Mladost 2, with the arrival of winter, things have been taking on some crazy transformations. I have always thought that the apartment blocks outside of the entrance to our campus had some very specific degree of beauty in their utilitarian design. At night however, they look spectacular as if part of a New York City skyline...

High Density Housing

New York City. Sofia, Bulgaria.

After the Snow

Jack the Snow Dog :)

The Best of...

Munich, Germany! (Thanksgiving Break)



After an epic evening at the Hoffbrauhaus brewery, where they serve beer in 1 liter increments, we left on an early train (which we barely made even after sprinting through the giant central train station a little worse for wear) to go to the "Walt Disney Castle" near the Austrian border.

A 12 person bike... that serves gluwein. Fantastic! :)

Christmas Is Coming!

It is Official! Christmas is almost here. I don't know where it came from, because last that I knew it was Thanksgiving, and I was on a trip to Munich, Germany. Now I find myself at home, in Maine with the company of my family and all the craziness that is our preparation for our Christmas Eve party.... I have some clutch photos that I want to share with you from the past month or so. Last week, we had our debut with the Balkan Dance group from school, in our school's Winter Concert... We are no where near as talented as our students (who I would say are phenomenal) but we certainly have some fun! Not to mention, the students find it hysterical that their two-left footed international teachers are dressed in traditional folk costume and attempt to dance on stage for the whole school...

A portion of the international teachers in our festive Balkan costumes, post performance!

I Love Biology Lab

I love teaching my students about the stuff that we do in the lab. It is just much more fun to see them get excited about seeing things through a microscope lens. My students just love being in the lab and being able to see things really up close. One of the students took photos in the lab the other day and I thought they were pretty great looking.

Yay for microscopes and biology lab!

ACS Faculty Thanksgiving... a.k.a. The Great Pie Making Odyssey

Lindsay and I decided that for Thanksgiving dinner, we would prepare pumpkin and apple pie for everyone. I just could not think of having Thanksgiving dinner with the people who are like a family to me, without pumpkin and apple pie. Some people do pecan and perhaps other harvest-y type pies, but I have always grown up with pumpkin and apple.

Now, here in Bulgaria, pumpkin pie does not come easy. There really is no "quick" way to a delish pumpkin pie, since there is no canned pumpkin or pre-made pie crust. Lindsay really wanted pumpkin, so she found a recipe online that told us how to make the filling from fresh pumpkin, tiikveniik as it is fondly referred to in these parts. Roast or boil the pumpkin, mash, add ingredients and spices, pour into pie crust. No problem. We sent our requests in and our recipes so the school could purchase the ingredients for us to start prepping on Friday.

We showed up on Friday afternoon, around 4 to already find some ambitious souls in the cafeteria preparing their ingredients for the feast that was to follow the next day. I was snooping around the back of the cafeteria (which is a sketchy place on its own... circa 1955... pure communist design) and I walked around to corner to find....

... the LARGEST three pumpkins I had EVER seen before. I am kicking myself that I did not run home to fetch my camera because the next three hours were filled with the HILARITY that ensued as Lindsay attempted to get the pumpkins washed, cut into reasonable baking chunks, and then smashed up into puree... I will just describe the situation as best I can using as few sentences as possible...

Image #1: The utter jaw dropping shock in Lindsay's face as I showed her the size of the pumpkins. I am not sure how much they weighed, but they were heavy and around the size of a smallish medium sized exercise ball... like, way larger than your typical jack-o-latern. Plus they are white-ish... the orange pumpkins are not that great to eat.

Image #2: Lindsay wrestling with the pumpkins in the

industrial sized sink to get them cleaned. Turns out pumpkins are slippery when wet.

Image #3: SOmehow the pumpkins made it in one piece from the back room, to the sink, and then onto the table, where they slowly met their end. First a butcher knife... too small and whimpy. We then found a kitchen axe (not sure what the kitchen axe traditionally is used for. for that night, it was for hacking at the pumpkins).

Image #4: Beads of sweat slowly forming on Lindsay and Carmine's foreheads as they take turns with the axe to battle the pumpkins into smaller, more manageable pieces.

Image #5: The hysterical laughter coming from the school cafeteria lady who was there to help us in the kitchen. She was just standing off to the side and laughed as Carmine and Lindsay took turns with the axe. By now there were bits of pumpkin and chunks of the stuff flying all over the place... and the lunch lady just kept laughing.

FINALLY after some time has passed, the three giant pumpkins are into smaller hunks, and are spread out among about 6-8 platters to be put in the over to bake. Pumpkin needs to soften.

Image #6: Lindsay's slow anger and frustration as she realizes some of them are burning in these Communist era ovens but are still remaining uncooked and hard. Didn't quiet realize how hard it was to burn something and yet it still remain undercooked.

Eventually the pumpkin came out of the oven, there were several hands there to help pull the pumpkin apart and into a GIANT stove top pan. There would be pumpkin forever.... soooooo much.

All the while I had been making the pie crusts/dough with the ingredients and tools I was not totally familiar with. It was turning out okay, and we made a few preliminary pies to work out our timing and to familiarize ourselves with the ovens. They came out pretty well so I was happy.

Saturday though, was showtime. We had to make pies enough to feed about 150 people. We decided to make as many pies as we could, and that people would eat them or take home the extra. I think we ended up with something absurd, like 15 LARGE pies.... sooo much. There was still left over pumpkin.

The remainder of the pumpkin has been portioned off into bags.

Some people have already come to pick up some of it to use for their own cooking, but right now we have enough in our freezers to last for quite the long time!

More Adventures

...include Thanksgiving for the entire faculty which was a fantastic time on Saturday afternoon. I think I can confidently claim that I will never again attempt to make homemade apple pie and pumpkin pie (from whole pumpkin to pie) for a large group ever again. haha. It was not so bad, but without certain conveniences like pastry cutters and canned pumpkin, and tools in the circa 1950's kitchen of our school cafeteria, this made for quite the undertaking. THANKFULLY the 14 or so pies we made came out mostly beautifully, with a few exceptions, but it all tasted delicious! Pictures, I promise, will be up soon once I have finished the grades I need to submit for tomorrow... oops!

Another ongoing event in the adventures of the ladies of Pink house: our battle with the washing machine... Here is another follow-up email that was sent by my roommate, which I found particularly amusing:

Hi ---,

Do you have any update or ETA on the replacement washing machine at Pink House? I tried to do laundry today and it didn't go well - it ended with me saying some very harsh words to the machine after it nearly crushed a few of my fingers while trying to run away. It would be nice to have laundry be a non-event again, so anything that you can do to hurry the new machine along to our house would be much appreciated.

Thanks!
A

I certainly hope that our washing machine can be fixed soon... but it does make for some amusing stories! I have not tried using it recently, especially with Abby's stories, however my laundry sitch is getting a bit dire!

Flu Vacation Adventure

Last week we were given the week off from school as mandated by the BG Ministry of Education to help end the spread of the flu epidemic through our schools... Now, this would have been a great idea and a great way to spread germs however, all other public areas of business and entertainment remained open, so I am not sure how well their epidemic control worked, but it certainly made for some excited teachers here. Unfortunately some people had to remain because they were considered to be "administrative staff", so not all parties were included in this time of unexpected adventures. This did not stop a few of us from taking advantage of this time to explore a few previously unknown territories. Some went off to Italy (Cinque Terre and the Lakes Region to the north), others to Greece, Rome, Romania... I went with a few friends in a rent-a-car to visit the oft-disputed region of Macedonia.

Partially I was interested in going because of the beautiful pictures and accounts of travel in the country enticed me. Another part (and the part with the stronger interest) wanted to visit Macedonia to try to figure out what all the hub-bub has been over with this tiny, little country! Bulgarians claim the region and its' people to be Bulgarian; Greece lays some of the same claims. I am not sure which or if either are correct (doubtful) but I feel like this little place has something special to offer if there are so many people upset. I wanted to find out for myself about the country and to try to see what it all was about.

Wednesday morning, we rented a car and were off to the BG-MK border. The night before, I had received an email from the Warden of the US Embassy in Sofia, Bulgaria warning travellers that a bridge on the BG side of the border zone had collapsed the previous day .... "due to bad weather"... Now, I am not sure what kinds of bridges you all have travelled on, but I am pretty sure that the bridge is not supposed to collapse DUE TO WEATHER. We luckily received this email and decided to take an alternate, longer, but also more beautiful route. We certainly had a hard time figuring out where we were supposed to go-- there apparently is NO MAP INFO available on Google Maps feature! It was SO WEIRD.... So, because we did not have a map, we just kind of took off driving in the right direction, hoping there would be better signage on the other side of the board. There was not.

We actually believed this was the customs border patrol of Macedonia. For a brief man...

Lindsay in front of the Aleksandar of Makedonia memorial/public fountain/giant war symbolism

Mosque in central Bitola, Macedonia

(there will be more uploaded soon!!!!)

Adventures of Pink House

Recently, our washing machine and dryer have been giving us a run for our money.... While I ws out of town for the "flu vacation" which was given to us last week, thus prompting an impromptu trip to Macedonia, my roommate who works in the college counseling office, who was required to stay and work for the week, had an encounter with our washer... This is her letter to the school president... It was too hysterical not to share... :) perhaps we will receive a new washer and dryer?? Who knows...

Hi ___,

The washing machine here at Pink House is a sad little machine these days. A part of it broke off a few weeks ago and it was leaking water, so I put in a work request and they sort of fixed it. I mean, it wasn't perfect - Vinka (our house cleaner) said that it was "Bulgarski rabota," Bulgarian work, since it was still leaking some water. Anyway, this past weekend it got worse. The part that had broken off broke off again and the machine started walking. More like shimeying, really. I came home one day and it had shimeyed out a good six feet or so away from the wall. It even turned a corner - impressive!

All this to say that our machine is in rough shape. It shakes loudly during the spin cycle, it still leaks some water down the front, and it shimeys all over the place. I'll leave it up to you to decide the best course of action, I'm not sure if there's an appliance repair place that could be called or if this sad little machine has just met its end.

Thanks for your attention to this matter.

-"A"

Zombie Remnants of Halloween Eve

I look like a crazed demon (or I guess, a zombie) in this one... 

Happy Halloween kids!!! hahahahhaaa...

First Snow!!

IT'S SNOWING!!!!

Today was the first snow that has any sort of accumulation on the ground. I will take pictures tomorrow to post :-D

(UPDATE! Here is a photo I took this morning before heading to school :-) Hooray for snow!)

I love snow! It tells of the coming winter....

My students were not as excited for snow as I was... They also were campaigning to get 50 more students absent from school so that the admin would possibly cancel it for a "flu vacation". I told them to stay healthy, drink lots of water and get lots of sleep... what a good Biology teacher I am.

okay, so I admit that since looking at these photos, it is not a whole lot of snow. However, it was still nice to see yesterday :)

Happy Halloween!!!

This week, we have been hard at work.  Classes, extracurriculars, and this.... 

... the school halloween dance where we made a special appearance.  Rock on, rock on. :-)

Happy Halloween, ACS!!! 

the video is kind of dark, but I think you get the idea.  I am in the front left (white shirt and black vest). To my right is Kate and then Abby.  Back row behind me: Lindsay and then Jaime (look for the big hair!)

So. Much. Fun. :) 

Ecology @ ACS

I am the advisor of the Ecology Club at ACS this year.  I am totally stoked because not only is it a topic that I am interested in, but I am working with a group of very motivated and passionate students, who are just doing all of the work themselves.  They have already come up with a group logo and have a few great projects in mind for starting a sustainable recycling program here at ACS.  I am totally excited for them and can't wait to see the good things they will com up with this year!  

Let's welcome our new club logo!! :

This is the idea for a fundraiser to help us promote the use of recycled paper at ACS... 

Change the World Wednesdays

Here is the post for this week's CTWW: 

(see the blog here)

Recycling produces a lot of reclaimed materials. In order for the process to
work, there needs to be a strong aftermarket for products made from recycled content.

For this week's challenge:

Each time you shop for a non-food item, look to see whether a recycled version is available. If feasible, buy the recycled version. If there isn't one, but it's a category such as paper where you know recycled versions exist, ask the store to start carrying a recycled version.

OR

If you already buy recycled items regularly (or cannot afford to do so at all) then write a blog post about products made from reclaimed materials.

Great challenge, don't you think?

That's it for this week. Okay ... all together now:

WE'RE CHANGING THE WORLD ... ONE CHALLENGE AT A TIME!

Fall in Bulgaria

Fall is here. It is official.  There are fall colors on the leaves, it has been cold and crisp for most of the past 2 weeks; the government has turned on the central heating (I think) or at least the heat in our houses and our school is on... Snow is on the top of Vitosha, and winter is well on its way :) It makes me happy!! 

We had some time for some adventures in and around Sofia, including a trip to the Black Sea, which was great, and a lot of fun.  I love road trips, and it was nice to share the time with the new roommates and Jess.  We stayed in Sozopol, which was a wonderful cultural mix of Bulgaria, Turkey and Greece... travelled during the day to Burgas, Nessebur, and Sinemorets.  We had a great time with a few fun adventures including trying to find a beach in Sinemorets (which there is not much of)... we also tried to find this park preserve/lake where there are supposed to be all these water birds which is outside of Burgas.  No matter how hard we tried, we could not find it! And then I realized we had been driving past one of the lakes each day and that it was there all along, but by that time, no one was really interested in visiting the park preserve.  In the middle of this particular quest of the weekend, we happened upon this Thracian tomb which dated back to some ridiculous time around the 5th century, AD or BC... I am not sure.  I think maybe BC.  It was really old...  Basically it consisted of a round, earthen room that had this tall "chimney" like thing in the middle, that you could see up to the sky above, but the whole tomb was underground... very odd, but pretty interesting.  We got there right before closing time, and so we did not have to pay the 2 leva entrance fee that usually was required.... hahha.  It was random and weird, but kind of fun :) 

I wil have to post up pictures from this weekend in Sozopol.  It was beautiful!  Off to dinner now, but with more to come! 

It has been too long...

I cannot believe I have been negligent with my blogging.  However, for a quick rundown of the past THREE MONTHS.... eeek! ... keep reading!! 

AMAZING trip to Mexico with Christy, fellow international teacher extraordinaire who is in Liberia again this year.  Travelling in Mexico ended with a small jaunt to a friend's wedding in Cabo San Lucas. Fantastic!! 

Wonderful visits with old and dear friends in Virginia. 

Family visiting. 

A relatively uneventful move back to Bulgaria for the new school year. 

A busy start to the new year... new responsibilities, new roommates (who are wonderful!), new places travelled and some more trips to come!! 

Here are some of my favorite photos from the past few months.  I hope to elaborate a bit more about each of the trips, places, people and events in the next week or two.  I am thrilled!!! to have my friend Sally come for a visit this week!!  She has been living in Prague and will be there this year while she is teaching English at a Prague high school.  They have a week off of school randomly and so she is coming here to visit in Bulgaria and to try to see some of the great places BG has to offer, as well as explore around Sofia with me and friends.  I am totally excited to have her here, and I look forward to sharing some of our adventures together! 

Okay, so the photos, in no real particular order... 

The house of Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo... what a long, emotional and messy relationship they had... 

Cultural Festival in the Mexico City neighborhood of Coyoacan

Anti-government grafitti

Reflections 

Christy and I at maybe the greatest taco place in Mexico City (well, at least in the neighborhood) which also had the most adorable waiter, Pedro, who was completely taken with us and kept getting teased by the "older Pedro" and the other waiters... completely hysterical. 

Nationalism is the largest flag in one of the largest central squares in the world. 

Sunset in Cabo

Rocks on the boat ride/dinner cruise in Cabo to kick off Derek and Jenn's wedding festivities :-)

Plymouth, Massachusetts

I love New England towns. 

Plymouth Rock!! (I think this has already been posted in a previous blog post... oops.)

Colors! Eastern Market, D.C.

Eat your vegetables!!! Eastern Market, DC.  I want to live here! yummmm...